Editor’s note: This is Part II. You can read Part I here.
Danae
Hello, I am Danae Madariaga, a senior at Alberto Blest Gana high school. I have participated in a data collection project with Etienne, Tim, and Derek for three months. Throughout this time, I have learned many things such as the use of Google Colab to analyze my data that I uploaded to the cloud. This makes it easier for scientists from around the world to analyze my data as well.
Really though, the most important thing that I have learned is that being a scientist is not easy! It is a very hard job that requires perseverance and patience. I have also learned how to optimize my time to perform my experiments in a consistent manner. Working with Backyard Brains was my very first job and a very pleasant experience, especially with all the new tools and plants I have now!
My Home Experimental Setup with Basil Plants and Venus Fly Traps(more…)
I am Derek Arro, a senior student at High School Alberto Blest Gana in Santiago, Chile. Currently, I have been working at Backyard Brains for 2 weeks, and I’m in charge of helping to write the manuscript for the experiments my team did with plant electrophysiology last semester. Backyard Brains is an incredible team that designs very educational and eye catching experiments.
In our case, we recorded the electrophysiology signals of various plants to a flame stimulus. To register the signal, we used the Backyard Brains Plant SpikerBox (amplifier) by wrapping a silver electrode covered with conductive gel around a branch and with a ground electrode connected to the…. ground. Our stimulus consisted of a flame applied to a leaf next to the silver electrode (see pictures above and below). Last semester, my classmates collected data on 14 different plants, from the famous Chilean Araucaria tree to normal basil herbs. We observed responses between 5-20 seconds after the flame stimulus in about 50% of our observations. After that, we uploaded our data analyses in Google Colab. This model serves to allow more researchers more access to the data to make a catalog of physiology of plant electricity and projects for people who want to start something in science.
What’s the effect of our warming climate on Venus flytrap, a carnivorous, bloodthirsty (or shall we say fly-thirsty?) yet vulnerable plant? And how can we help preserve this amazing species? These questions were asked by 18-year-old Mulin Huan from Princeton High School in New Jersey, whose research project made it to top 300 high school seniors in this year’s Regeneron Science Talent Search.
To examine the effect of temperature on the plant, Mulin measured the amplitudes of action potentials in 30 Venus Flytrap individuals using our Plant SpikerBox. A 5°C enviroment temperature makes for significantly lower amplitudes than the control 30°C and regular 40°C environments, his study shows. However, as the amplitudes decrease in the harsher environment, the plant’s maximum memory time between two hair stimuli that trigger its trap to close–goes up. That is, the plant tends to “remember” better!
The average relative value of Venus’s action potentials
